[Harp-L] Larry Adler

[George Miklas]

Thanks Mick for the lead on Sir George Solti, Bette Davis and Irv
Kupcinet.  I'll research these.
*--------------------------*
*GEORGE MIKLAS  **www.GeorgeMiklas.com <http://www.georgemiklas.com/>*
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On Fri, Nov 16, 2018 at 1:09 PM Mick Zaklan <mzaklan at xxxxx> wrote:

> Hi George,
>    Our library only had a couple of Gershwin biographies, but I made a
> point of reading the larger of the two awhile back.  Couldn't find any
> mention of Larry in it and it was pretty exhaustive.  I've read a fair
> amount of stuff over the years about George Gershwin and Larry is never
> mentioned.  I hope you can unearth a connection other than Larry's own
> biography.  I would hate to think that he made this stuff up.
>    When Larry played the Tango, celebrities showed up.  I remember reading
> that Bette Davis popped in.  In gossip columnist Irv Kupcinet's
> autobiography, he gives an interesting account of a drunken Truman Capote
> causing a disturbance during Larry's performance.  Myself, I was there the
> night Sir George Solti, conductor of the Chicago Symphony, came in and
> later extended an invitation to Larry to play with the orchestra.
>    I'll always remember one night in particular.  Since I was alone, they
> moved me to a table with a half dozen members of the Fred Waring
> Pennsylvanians (a choral group) and a very tipsy IBM executive named Don
> who had played harmonica since he was a kid.  Apparently the choral group
> carried a female dancer and that's why they were there.  She had studied
> with Larry's old partner, dancer Paul Draper.  Larry sat down with us and
> chatted quite bit.  The IBM executive wound up picking up the tab for the
> whole table.  "Somewhere out there," he told us, "there's a bunch of IBM
> executives trying to get laid.  I told them I was going to see the world's
> greatest harmonica player.  They laughed at me."
>
> Mick Zaklan
>